I Do Not Sleep by Ihsan Abdel Kouddous

Author:Ihsan Abdel Kouddous
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press

13

THE ENTIRE HOUSE WAS COVERED by black doubt, pale jealousy, hatred and malice, tension and insomnia. We were living on pins and needles, broken, exhausted, like crazy people, like a group lost in a dark desert. We started to collide with each other as we looked for light and salvation.

My father’s wife decided to challenge my father. She no longer submitted or kept quiet. She no longer just bore his anxiety. If she didn’t like what he said, she’d scream in his face. If he was quiet, she’d pretend to ignore him. If he issued an order, she didn’t obey. The situation overwhelmed her. She was like a pressure cooker full of steam that she’d kept in for too long, and she was bound to explode. She revolted against the suffering inflicted by my father—suffering that she didn’t understand and he didn’t explain.

My uncle’s joyful spirit disappeared. He was silent and miserable, as if he’d lost everything. He no longer tried to find out what was upsetting my father. He didn’t even talk to him anymore. If they met, they only exchanged a quick, meaningless hello, neither of them hearing it from the other. Many times, my uncle excused himself from eating lunch with us. Other times, we didn’t even see him before he left. It seemed that all that kept him in the same house with us was his affection for Auntie Safiya, his love for me, and a residue of feeling for his brother.

My father was the most miserable of all. He wasted away and dried out like a piece of wood. He always seemed like he wanted to smash something or cry. He sometimes controlled his nerves, appearing cold and frozen like he was made of stone. Other times, his burden oppressed him and he screamed and lashed out with sharp words like a whip. He seemed always to be operating according to a plan he had in his head—a naive plan, like something concocted by a child. It amounted to nothing more than keeping a close watch over his wife and surprising her from time to time. He was trying to catch her in his brother’s arms. He’d come home at unusual times and tiptoe into the house. He’d pretend to be on the phone but it would be clear there was no one on the other end and he was just observing her. When she’d leave to visit someone or run errands, he’d follow at a distance.

I remained the same as I was, except that the crime started speeding up my plan, like a horse race approaching the end. And as the finish line got near, my torture became even more severe—the torture of my conscience. I’d listen to the whistling of the storm, waiting for it to uproot the house.

I committed dozens of little crimes to stoke the fires of doubt inside my father. Every day, I’d throw a piece of wood on the fire. I didn’t have any mercy on him, not for a single day.

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